SAN JOSE, Calif. — After missing out on qualifying for the past two Olympics games, the U.S. men’s national team is looking to return to the stage this summer in Tokyo, and the San Jose Earthquakes will be well represented in the squad searching to make that happen.
With two weeks to go until Concacaf holds it’s qualifying tournament in Guadalajara, Mexico, USMNT U-23 head coach Jason Kreis has named his 20 player roster, and it includes Quakes midfielder Jackson Yueill and goalkeeper JT Marcinkowski. Both will expect to be starters on a team that hopes to be one of two from the region that will move on to the Tokyo games.
“Yeah, we are hoping to qualify for the Olympics,” Yueill said. “We have a really, really talented young team, and a lot of players who have played with the national team first team as well, so I think it’s a really good opportunity to show the progress and how the youth has come up in U.S. soccer. This is a great challenge for us.”
Failures to advance from Concacaf to the 2012 and 2016 Olympics have left a black eye on the U.S. men’s soccer program, and this year’s team will look to make amends for those past setbacks. For Yueill, who’s also become a key figure on Gregg Berhalter’s USMNT senior team, the challenge of advancing to the Olympic tournament is expected, even welcomed, and he’s eager to lead the U-23s forward.
“Burden? I don’t know if I’d use the word burden,” Yueill said. “Pressure? Pressure is relative. We take it in high esteem that we are the U.S. and we should be qualifying for every Olympics tournament and World Cup.”
The task won’t be easy, as the USMNT was placed in a daunting group, one of two groups of four in the tournament. They’ll open March 20 against Costa Rica, play the Dominican Republic on March 23, and finish the group stage with hosts Mexico on March 26. The top two teams in the group will advance to the semifinals on March 30, with the winners of those games qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics.
“We have a really tough group and we get to go out there and showcase our skills,” Yueill said. “I’m super excited for the opportunity and I hope to make the most of it.”
Yueill earned his first cap with the senior team last year, but he’s been a mainstay in the youth setup since debuting with the U-18 side in 2014. His emergence on the international level has corresponded to success at the club level, as Yueill has been a first-choice central midfielder for the Earthquakes since the tail end of the 2018 MLS season.
“Jackson is a really interesting player for me, especially because he was one of the few players that was in my very first camp with the under-23s back in March,” Kreis said. “I feel like Jackson’s career has really taken a mega, mega step forward here in the past twelve months. It is to the point where now I think he is arguably considered a little bit more of a mainstay in the full team.”
Yueill also has strong support from Quakes head coach Matias Almeyda in helping the 22-year-old display his skill set on the field, giving the midfielder various responsibilities that have accelerated his standing on the international stage.
This season, in the first two games, Almeyda has even played him in a defensive midfielder role rather than in a more advanced position as a way to increase his experience level in a position he has featured in with the U.S. team. Last year’s starter for the Quakes, Judson, has been relegated to the bench as a result.
“Jackson is playing in Judson’s position because I am looking for a different type of game,” Almeyda said. “I am giving Jackson the opportunity since he’s such a talent for MLS and the United States.”
Marcinkowski, who is currently the backup goalkeeper to Earthquakes starter Daniel Vega, has supplemented his limited MLS experience with a strong showing for Reno 1868 FC, San Jose’s USL Championship affiliate.
In Reno’s season opener last Friday, Marcinkowski recorded a 3-1 win and made numerous acrobatic saves against the Tacoma Defiance. He now has 41 starts for the USL side in two-plus seasons to go along with five appearances for the Quakes, all at the end of the 2018 MLS season.
While Yueill has been getting more reps in with the senior team over the past year, Marcinkowski has been a fixture in the U-23 squad, appearing in all seven training camps the team has held in this qualifying cycle. He joined Berhalter’s most recent camp in January, one comprised mostly of MLS players, including Yueill. Back in 2017, Marcinkowski helped the U.S. win its first Concacaf U-20 title.
Whether Marcinkowski, like Yueill, earns a starting spot for the Olympic qualifiers will come down to how Kreis sees his best eleven to face each opponent. The coach has three goalkeepers to choose from, with Real Salt Lake’s David Ochoa and the Philadelphia Union’s Matt Freese joining the Quakes ‘keeper on the roster, and the coach is not yet willing to name his favorite.
“It is a really interesting question and I think it is probably going to be our most difficult decision to decide who will be the starting goalkeeper for this qualification tournament,” Kreis said. “I really think all three of the goalkeepers have some sets of skills that are quite nice.”
Young goalkeepers can be prone to making mistakes, Kreis admitted, though he was still pleased that all three candidates for the starting role are getting minutes as professionals, even if most of those minutes is coming at the USL level. Ochoa, 19, is the youngest of the three, with Marcinkowski, 22, the eldest, and Kreis revealed that age might play a part in his decision making.
“There is varying levels of experience to those players,” Kreis said. “If you just looked at the number of matches played, whether it is USL, MLS, there is probably one that has played more than the others and he happens to be the youngest one. It will be a difficult decision, but I can tell you we haven’t made it yet.”
Yueill and Marcinkowski will leave the Quakes this week to join the U-23 in Guadalajara for a pre-tournament preparation camp, making them unavailable for San Jose’s next two league games, at the Union on March 14 and home against Sporting Kansas City on March 21. The Concacaf Olympic qualifying tournament falls outside the official FIFA international break, which runs from March 23-31, but Almeyda was not going to hold the two players back from featuring for the USA.
“I like for them to go play for their country,” Almeyda said, himself a former international with Argentina. “Representing a country is one of the greatest honors for a player. It’s what you work for, to reach that moment. It plays against the club in some aspects because we won’t have him in training sessions and in some games, but these are regulations that as a coach, I can’t do anything about.”
While Marcinkowski’s absence won’t affect San Jose, losing Yueill for a pair of games is an issue. The aforementioned Judson is likely to regain the starting defensive midfielder spot for the Quakes, which won’t necessarily result in a drop off in talent, and Almeyda is confident he can manage the balancing act Yueill will face in playing for both club and country.
Meanwhile, Yueill has all eyes on qualifying for the Olympics and then making the 18-man roster for this summer’s games in Tokyo. His confidence stems from a good January camp, one that allowed him and other squad members to get in extra training with qualification in mind. He’s aware about the tough path the U.S. faces in the group stage, where one of the region’s powerhouses will fail to advance to the semifinals, but he remains even-minded about the task at hand.
“We are going to go into it not underestimating anyone, but also not overestimating anyone,” Yueill said. “We have to take it one game at a time, and we’ll see how it goes. But I don’t think not making it in past years puts more pressure on us. I think we just go out and play the style that we’re told to play and show the quality that we have.”